Imagine human excreta falling on you from airplanes flying above!! A former senior armyman has moved the National Green Tribunal alleging dumping of human waste by aircraft over residential areas near the IGI airport here, which led the green panel to order an inspection of his South Delhi house.

Lt Gen (Retd) Satwant Singh Dahiya has sought criminal proceedings against commercial airlines and levy of hefty fines on them for endangering the health of residents, terming the act as violation of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Noting the submissions of the petitioner, the green panel directed Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to depute a senior environmental engineer to inspect his house and check the existence of human excreta on the walls.

It also asked CPCB that if excreta was found, samples should be collected for analysis and the report placed before the tribunal. A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar also issued notices to the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Civil Aviation and CPCB, seeking their replies within two weeks.

Plane toilets store human waste in special tanks. These are normally disposed of by ground crew once the plane lands, but aviation officials acknowledge that lavatory leaks can occur in the air at times. There have been instances, including in India, when people have been injured.

In his petition, Vasant Enclave resident Dahiya has sought creation of a 24-hour helpline for immediate reporting of the incident and a monitoring mechanism to check that no aircraft drops “human soil or excreta” while landing.

“For past more than the week in the early morning, we found that walls and floors of terrace of our house splattered with large patches of excreta dumped by aircraft flying in front of Palam airport at night. This is the second time this has happened. Last time it had occurred in early October when we had spent Rs 50,000 to get the entire exterior resurfaced with fresh paint.

“Diwali is only few days away and being the festive season having recently finished fresh coating of the house exterior at considerable experience to clean up the premises. We are again faced with having our walls completed spattered with waste. We are retired people and cannot afford to have this defacement everyday,” the plea said.

The bench, also comprising U D Salvi, said “we direct senior environmental engineer from CPCB to visit the premises of the applicant and check whether as a matter of fact remnant of human excreta are found on the walls or on terrace floor of the applicant’s building or any building adjacent thereto.

“If the remnants are found, its samples should be collected for analysis in order to confirm its nature and analysis report be placed before the Tribunal on the next date of hearing” on November 25.

Advocate B V Niren, appearing for Civil Aviation Ministry, opposed the argument and said plane toilets stored the waste in special tanks which are normally disposed of by ground crews once the plane lands.

In January this year, a woman in a village near Bhopal suffered injuries when a frozen mass bounced off a nearby building and fractured her shoulder. Aviation experts then believed that the mass could have been either blue ice, a term used to describe sewage leaked form an aircraft lavatory, or a megacryometeor – an extremely large chunk of ice formed under unusual conditions. Similar incidents have been reported from the US and the UK too.

BHOPAL: Almost ten months after an elderly tribal woman suffered a shoulder injury with a football-sized iced sewerage material that fell on her from the sky in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh, a Delhi based aviation investigator B K Srivastava claims to have identified the commercial plane which ‘leaked’ it. Besides Sagar, Srivastava has also zeroed in on two other commercial planes that apparently which dropped huge ice chunks while flying over state’s Harda district on April 5 and in West Bengal on October 13 this year where villagers took ‘selfies’ with it.

He has pled director general of civil aviation (DGCA) to either investigate these mid-air drops or share radar images with him to corroborate his own findings. Srivastava has sent a letter to the DGCA referring incidents reported from Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal asking them to get it investigated by air safety office. DGCA’s air safety headquarters is located in Kolkata.

Initially, he had a doubt that these ice chunks could be a ‘megacryometeor’ – extremely large atmospheric ice conglomerations that fall under blue-sky atmospheric conditions but he is sure that they were ‘blue Ice’ – a term used in aviation context for frozen sewage material leaked mid-flight from toilets of aircraft’s on the flight route.

“I am confident about my findings, but this has to be ascertained by the regulatory body. By going through geographical coordinates and radar images we can pin point the commercial air craft which dropped the ice-chunks lavatory materials while flying overhead,” claims Srivastava who has done extensive research on mysterious ice ball dropping from sky. Experts say waste leaking out of a lavatory is in a liquid form, but gets frozen because of low temperatures at height at which airplanes fly. There is a fall of roughly 2 degrees for every 1,000-foot elevation. However, chances of such a chunk of ice reaching the ground is remote although not unheard of.

Once DGCA detects the plane, the woman who got injured in Sagar is liable for receiving a huge compensation as the incident falls under the category of ‘aircraft accident’ which mandates compensation to a victim under Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2012, said Srivastava. He has more than 45 years of aviation experience in field of air traffic control, aircraft accident investigation, airport planning, airport management and airport obstacle survey.

It was touted as a rare, celestial occurrence in Sagar district’s Aamkhoh village on December 17, till aviation scientists claimed culprit was a commercial plane which dropped a ball of frozen poo and urine from its toilet. Perhaps it was the first incident in India, where a person suffered injuries due to fall of ice from a passing plane. Victim, Rajrani Gaud, is alive only because the 50 kg ice chunk crashed into the terrace edge of her house before hitting her. Sagar incident was located at geographical coordinates 23°14’03.39″N, 78°53’06.08″E, which lies just below air traffic services route (ATS) of A-791 (Karachi-Kolkata-Bangkok), where the aircraft at height could be seen flying regularly from East to West or West to East when the sky was clear.

April 5: People in Harda believed it was the wrath of god

Two huge ice chunks dropped at Nausar village in state’s Harda district. Though nobody was injured, there was panic among villagers, who believed it was their deity’s wrath for breaking an age old tradition. Parmanand Khodre was working at his farm when the ice ball, weighing 100 kg crashed at a neighbouring field around 11.45 pm with a thud. When another crashed after two minutes, he was drawn to the spot by anxiety. Many villagers who gathered at the spot felt the same. Some even took broken pieces home. This incident was located at geographical coordinates 22°28’24″N and 77°12’29″E.

October 13: Villagers in West Bengal took ‘selfies’ with the blue ice

A big blue coloured ice block weighing about 8 to 10 Kg fell in a house in ‘Pakdaha’ under Sashan police station in 24 Pargana district (WB) at around 7.30 am. The ice piece broke into pieces and started melting. A big crowd gathered to watch the incident and many people took selfies and photographs in their mobiles. The ice block liquefied after some time. Many people collected ice & liquid samples unaware of the fact that it could be a frozen human waste leak from passing plane. Officials from Geological Survey of India, collected the ice/ liquid samples for the purpose of getting them tested.

Geographical Coordinates of the incident site (Pakdaha) are found as 22°40’55″N, 088°34’12″E. This place is located to the East of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport Kolkata at a distance of about 10 Kms. Location of the site corresponds to the area where aircraft coming to land at Kolkata Airport from South (Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai etc.) are flying almost parallel to Runway 01R/19L before turning left for carrying out an ILS approach on Runway 19L.

A mysterious ice chunk dropping in a West Bengal village from the sky could be sewage leaked from the toilet of an aircraft that flew above the village.

“Most likely, the ice chunk is human waste leaked from the lavatory of an aircraft. We have sent the material for testing,” said Prabir Mondal, additional director general of Geological Survey of India (GSI). If the test results do prove the substance to be sewage leaking out of an aircraft, this will be the second such incident in the recorded history of aviation in India.

The first incident took place in December, when a 60-year-old woman suffered a shoulder injury after a football-sized chunk of ice fell on her from the sky in Sagar district of MP. Waste leaking out of the lavatory is in a liquid state but gets frozen because of the low temperatures of the altitude at which airplanes fly.

Bhaskar Mukherjee, Superintendent of Police of North 24 Parganas in West Bengal, said the ice chunk, blue in colour, came crashing down on the courtyard of a house in Pakdaha village in Shasan police station area on Thursday morning. “A GSI team came and collected the sample. We are now waiting for a report from them”, Mukherjee said.

TV footage showed picture of the ice chunk taken by villagers with their mobile phone cameras. Live footage showed the ice — melted and transformed into blue water — kept in polythene bag by a villager. The blue colour comes from disinfectant used in the lavatories.

As high heat plagued much of California, a Modesto family got a chilly surprise this week when a block of ice soared from the sky and through the roof of their home.

Monica Savath told KOVR-TV that she and her family were sitting in the living room of their home Wednesday when they heard a large crash. She went into her garage and noticed a gaping hole in the roof and the sun shining through it.

On the ground was a block of ice, melting in triple-digit temperatures.

Savath and her neighbors were left wondering where the ice came from.

The FAA says they haven’t received any similar reports. And the National Weather Service says temperatures in the area have been so hot that ice formation is nearly impossible.

Meteorologist Jason Clapp said the ice incident was definitely not weather-related.

People across the country have reported similar incidents in the past, and planes have been suspected. In those instances, ice falls from a plane because of a leak in a tank containing solid waste. The ice usually appears blue because of a chemical added to waste water.

In this case, the ice was not blue.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said Savath and her family has not contacted the agency to report the falling ice, but an FAA inspector went to Savath’s home Thursday morning anyway.

Investigators say a chunk of ice that fell from the sky and crashed through a car’s windscreen may have come from an aeroplane as it flew over Rome.

Called an ‘ice meteorite’ by Italian media, the falling object weighed almost 45lbs and left the car’s owner with a hefty repair bill, according to reports.

People who live nearby said they heard a loud bang and looked outside to see the parked car, a Toyota Aygo, with significant damage.

The car was unoccupied and no one was injured in Tuesday night’s bizarre incident in Rome’s Monteverde area.

Investigators think the chunk of ice may have formed when liquid leaked from a plane flying overhead, The Local reported.

It destroyed the car’s windscreen, front passenger seats and gearbox.

The car’s owner, Fabiola Nacci, told Rome newspaper Il Messaggero: ‘I went onto the balcony of my boyfriend’s house at 10pm and noticed what I thought was a white plastic bag on the front seat of my car, which I hadn’t left there.’

She went down and realised ice had gone through the car’s window.

Il Messaggero, which published photos of the damage, said police collected samples for testing and could charge the plane’s owner with aviation safety violations if it is confirmed the ice came from a plane.

In the meantime, Nacci is without a car.

She said: ‘The repairs will cost me about half of the Aygo’s current value.’

Ice falls from aircraft are considered to be extremely rare, with around 25 reported every year in the UK, said the Civil Aviation Authority.

Some incidents occur when ice forms naturally on an aircraft at higher altitudes and breaks off as the plane descends, it said.

The Federal Aviation Administration in the US said a plane’s lavatory holding tank or drain tube can occasionally leak wastewater that will freeze once it hits the outside air at a high altitude.

The discoloured ice is usually called ‘blue ice’ because a blue chemical is added in some tanks to deodorise the water and break down solid waste.

The FAA said: ‘If blue ice falls from an aircraft, the ice will usually break up and melt before it hits the ground.

‘If the ice doesn’t fall off, it will melt as the airplane descends for landing. Then it usually dissipates into small droplets.’

Pilots are unable to dump wastewater in flight because aircraft waste valves are located on the exterior and can only be operated by ground crew, the FAA said.

Reeling under an early heat wave, people in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh received a cool surprise — an ice chunk weighing about 30kg falling from the sky.

The chunk, believed to be a megacryometeor (ice-stone) or blue ice, came crashing down in a field on Monday, creating a three-foot-deep crater upon impact. This comes nearly three months after a similar incident in Sagar district in which a 60-year-old woman was injured.

The latest incident occurred at Nousar village in Timarini, 40km from Harda district headquarters. The field belonged to Raj Kumar Patil, whose younger brother Jitendra Patil was irrigating it at the time. On hearing the thundering sound, locals came running to the field to find the chunk had broken into three.

Jitendra said another chunk came crashing down in a field nearby. “I was very scared. Nearly 14 seconds after the first chunk of ice fell, another smaller chunk fell in a nearby field. We informed other villagers who came rushing,” he said.

Harda collector Srikant Banot said he will inspect the site and also rope in geologists and other experts. He said in all probability, it was blue ice from a plane flying overhead at a great height. He said he had sent the sub-divisional magistrate to the spot to submit a report.

“Although their formation is not clearly understood, they are considered to have an origin different from large hailstones. The research paper is based on four unusually large ice-stones weighing several kilograms which fell in western India (Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra ) during October–November 2010.

According to authors of the research paper, many causal mechanisms have been hypothesized for the formation and fall of megacryometeors that include aircraft icing, blue ice or waste water released from aircraft lavatories, leakage from aircraft water tanks, condensation trails of jet planes and extraterrestrial origin.

They also pointed out that, according to Martinez-Frias who has collected data on ice-stones falls across the world, “megacryometeor fall frequency has increased since 1950 and that 46 fall events have been recorded between 2001 and 2006 alone”.

HAMPDEN TOWNSHIP, Pa.–The owner of a Cumberland County car dealership is looking for answers after a mysterious chunk of ice fell from the sky Friday and smashed into the windshield of a vehicle on the lot.
“I’ve seen hail before, but nothing on that level. that was like football sized, it was ridiculous,” said Matt McCormick, sales consultant at McCafferty Kia.

McCormick was showing two customers some car options at the car dealership in Cumberland County.

He says, out of nowhere, he saw something falling from the sky.

“I heard a very loud whistling noise, we turned around to see a large white chunk crash into one of the cars.”

That large white chunk was a sheet of ice and it came crashing down on this brand new Kia Soul.

A chunk of ice “the size of a breezeblock” fell from a plane on Tuesday morning onto a road in Sheen.

Hannah Clive, 40, witnessed the ice narrowly miss parked cars in Alexandra Road at about 10.45am and said the block landed with a loud bang.

The musician and writer, who is the daughter of the late actor and author John Clive, told the Richmond and Twickenham Times: “I was sitting there talking with my mother on the phone and interrupted her saying ‘mum, something just fell out of the sky’.”